Babysoroos

Tim gets to wear a helmet when he wants to ride the trike. He’s crashed it a few times.

We live in a dangerous neighborhood. things keep bursting into flame, and ben has to race around putting them out.

Racing to the fire.

Now the fire’s out.

“A very long time ago, people wanted volcanoes close by and there was only lots and lots of mountains. There were two men and one had a carving knife and the other had a lighter.

So, one nice spring morning, they set off and they walked and walked and walked and then they started running and they ran on concrete and on dirt and…. on grass and…. on roads. They ran through yards and through flowers. They ran as fast as they could.

At last they reached the mountains. The one who had the carving knife carved a hole in the top of the mountain and the person who had a lighter lit a fire inside. And they had made a volcano!

And then they made another one and another one and another one. And they had lots of volcanoes.

And these people died when the dinosaurs died.“

Pause…

“Mummy, I like dinosaurs.“

Story told by Ben tonight at the dinner table, after we a discussion about Mount St. Helen’s. Paraphrased somewhat because I didn’t write it down the first time he told it, and when I asked him to repeat it there were some variations. But most of the phrasing is really his, in one of his tellings.

Ben has long shown an interest in my sewing machine. He’s wanted his own for probably a year now.

Well, finally, he has one.

I got a new one a couple months ago, but I kept my old one in case it came in useful someday. Yesterday he was in the playroom on his own, quiet for a while, and he opened the case, plugged it in, and was figuring it out. He showed me what he’d been doing, and I decided to go with his interest and set it up for him.

At first, we used paper and no thread. That way he could clearly see the machine feeding the paper through, the holes the needle made, and how it changed with different stitch sizes and patterns. And going backwards!

He’s very proud of himself and his ownership of this sewing machine. When he was done with the paper, he asked for some fabric so he could make Timothy a scarf. What a nice big brother, huh?

A tractor:

A bike:

A trike:

Sleepy.

Smiley.

Laughing.

In search of tea.

What could make boys happier?

Ben loves to help unload the truck when we get a load of compost from the city. He has his own shovel and his own wheelbarrow and he actually gets to do exactly the same work as Daddy. This is important to him.

So is just standing in the truck and watching Daddy.

Timothy even got in on the action this time. First of all just standing around looking at his new surroundings, then, since he didn’t have a shovel of his own, he just started grabbing and throwing handfuls of dirt. Every little bit helps, right?

Despite waking up to rain, we went for our walk in the woods this morning anyway. I’m trying to make it a weekly habit, right? Yeah. Didn’t work so well today.

Timothy was not interested in walking very far. He kept just stopping and glaring at me. I ended up carrying him for most of it. The second photo’s pretty blurry, but it really illustrates his look of “I am not amused by this” very effectively.

Ben, on the other hand, was having a blast jumping in mud puddles because we actually put his welly boots on today instead of hiking boots. Welly boots mean you can jump and splash to your heart’s content, and boy did he! Once we got past all the fun mud puddles, though, he was tired of walking and just wanted to be back at the car.

By the time we got to the car, Timothy was asleep again in the vest-carrier that I made when he was a baby (it’s still the easiest in/out and least bulky carrier I have!). (Photo by Ben.)

And Ben was muddy. Thank goodness for the rainpants!

Sharing a snack at the little table. They had exactly the same thing on their plates, but Timothy’s was cut up smaller. Guess who kept standing on his chair, leaning across the table and grabbing food from his brother’s plate? Yep. Gotta have the big boy food.

Ben was having great fun hosing down the patio the other day. Then he started hosing down the sliding door to the playroom. (It was closed, thankfully.) That was fun from the inside… felt like we were in a carwash or something.

And lastly… why yes, we do keep our strollers on the table. Don’t you?

Outside this afternoon. Daddy was using his chainsaw, so the boys were standing well back. I think Ben might have been making sure Timothy stayed well back, but it’s a sweet picture whatever his reasoning was.

It was snowing, but we decided to go for a walk in the woods anyway. It’s never quite as drippy in the woods as elsewhere, just soggy and muddy. And soggy and muddy is fun for boys.

Timothy walked a good half of it on his own.

Ben is very interested in fallen over root systems and large tree stumps. And climbing.

They took a little convincing to pose together….

Then Timothy got tired and actually said “up!”

But I wasn’t quite quick enough….

I want to make this a Friday morning habit if we can. If we can do it when it’s snowing in March, we can do it in any weather! It’ll be fun to notice the differences in the woods as the seasons change.